It is often necessary to ship biologic materials and other chemicals which must be refrigerated or frozen during shipment to preserve the materials from spoilage. Also, it is sometimes necessary to sell products in kit form which include a number of different biologic materials and chemicals, some of which must be frozen during shipment and others which must be refrigerated but cannot be frozen. While it is highly desirable to ship all contents of the kit together, in a pre-assembled kit, this has been difficult or impossible when some materials must be frozen and other materials which must be refrigerated within a certain temperature range, but cannot be frozen during shipment.
It is also desirable to ship certain other materials such as written instructions with the kit, and to provide a shipping container for the kit which is lightweight, inexpensive, compact and easy to construct. Further, it is desirable to have a shipping container which can be used to ship several kits at one time, and when the shipping container is received, to permit the kits to be separately removed for subsequent storage. The packaging for the kits should be such that the vessels and other components included in a single kit are organized, shipped and subsequently stored together as a complete kit. This avoids the need for the person to whom the materials are shipped to maintain an inventory of the many components included in the kit, and reduces the chance of loss, breakage and incorrect or incomplete assembly of kit components from the inventory.
It will be appreciated that there has been a significant need for a shipping container for shipping a plurality of kits of materials, each containing vessels maintained in a frozen state and other vessels maintained in an unfrozen state during shipment. Preferably, each of the kits should be packaged as a unit within the shipping container and be removable as a unit for subsequent storage. The shipping container should allow shipment of the kit components assembled in kit form by the manufacturer, and subsequent storage of the kit components in the kit packaging without disassembly of the kit. The present invention fulfills these needs, and further provides other related advantages.